I know we've been LONG over-due for a blog post....and especially with the kind of news we have to share...

I just wanted to document that Quincy is officially POTTY TRAINED!!!!!

I seriously had my doubts about this day actually arriving.... and to tell you the truth there were moments when I was undoubtedly ready to throw in the towel. BUT I stuck it out and after one hard core week of 24/7 lock down in Potty Boot Camp, our home, we have finally achieved some success!

Quincy has now been accident free for about 4 days. This is totally monumental. Whoever thought we'd be diaper free if we only put in one weeks worth of time?

Not to say it was all fun and games... the first few days were horrible for me and I kept asking myself, "Is he really learning anything?" We had 5 accidents in the first day... and seeing as how we only had three pairs of underwear you can imagine the amount of times I was doing laundry just to keep this kid in some dry clean underwear! On day 2 I demanded that Tyler take us to the store and we buy at least 7 pairs!

Quincy got to pick out the kind of underwear he wanted... which as no surprise to us, he chose some race car ones. He LOVES them! This was motivation for him to keep his underwear dry because he didn't want to pee on his race cars.

Now that we're into the second week, he is at a point in time where he tells us when he needs to pee and poop. Though we still have some timing issues with the whole pooping thing. He's not always in time to get from that point of where he knows it's coming to it actually getting it out in the toilet. But seriously, there are no complaints from me. He has been dry every day and I have even braved him sleeping in underwear for his nap! He woke up one afternoon and I was sure his bed would be wet, but it wasn't. He then said to me, "Mom I need to pee." I thought this was his way of admitting that he had already gone, but he then informed me, " No Mom, I need to go pee in the toilet!" So we got him down from his bed and he actually peed in the toilet.

Our next BIG adventure is peeing in public restrooms. He sort of has this phobia of peeing in 'strange' public toilets. He is overly concerned about the toilets not having lids. He thinks they are not toilets unless they have a lid on the back. He is also a little terrified of the loud flushing noise they make. So we just keep practicing, walking into lots of public restrooms and explaining that they aren't 'scary'. I think he'll eventually be okay. After all, we're only on week 2 of being potty trained.

I love Quincy's ability to learn and adapt to new situations. We are so proud of him.

We're also excited about being 'diaper free' .......at least until February... when we'll be buying three times the amount of diapers that we were buying last month.

Oh well, it's still exciting!!

Oh and lastly, as a side note... I have pictures from my camera that need to be blogged about, but we haven't had access to internet from our home( all my blogging stuff has to be done from an actual computer-- not Tyler's iphone, so we've had to use the apt. internet in the office)... and with all that Potty Boot Camp, it left little time for blogging. So rest assurred, we will be posting things as soon as we can.... now that we're able to venture out of the house!

Due to lack of Sleep.....

..............this is often how we find Quincy in the back seat during car rides. He is constantly passing out in the car, since he was such a party animal during Thanksgiving break. At least he's taking naps and sleeping through the night.... no complaints there. Although he is occasionally REALLY crabby. Luckily with Christmas coming up, and his concept of Santa Claus, we have something to hold him accountable to behaving.

Family Pictures....

For the past six months or so my Mom informed us that we would be taking a family photo during Thanksgiving break... since everyone would be together.

I have sort of been dreading this photo shoot since I'm almost 7 months pregnant now. I feel enormous and wasn't exactly keen on the idea of capturing myself at this stage in life for the next few years in a family photo.

However, I must say that the picture shoot with everyone was seemingly painless. We'll probably see how they turned out this week. I, did, however make my mom snap one of our little family before we changed out clothes.

And I will say, I think we all look pretty good.... I was even pleasantly surprised at how I looked, not nearly as dreadful as I felt in my mind.

I'm sure the family photos we had done by a friend of ours did an even better job than this little snapshot. Maybe we will do a family picture in a Christmas card this year after all.

Some Little Cousin Lovin'

All last week we told Quincy about how he would get to meet his cousin Lexi. He couldn't wait to play with her by the time Monday rolled around. However, on the drive to Grammie and Grandpa Loren's house he fell asleep and so his initial reaction to Lexi was a little shy.

This was his excited face to meet baby Lexi, before the nap.

Who couldn't love this little girl? She's so cute!

After a little while Quincy and Lexi were best buds. Although Quincy's more than double Lexi's age... the two were great companions for each other. Quincy loved that Lexi would crawl around chasing him, and Lexi liked having someone her size to rough house with. Boy that little Lexi bug is one tough chick. Thank goodness because sometimes Quincy's a little rougher than he means to be.

Lexi's not always all smiles... don't get me wrong she's one happy little girl, but she's quite serious sometimes (could be because she cut a tooth overnight while they were visiting). I loved these pictures of her different faces... this girl cracks me up! Especially this last one of her tilting her head to the side like, 'Hmmm... I dunno'. Funny, funny, girl!

Not only can Lexi keep up pretty well with Quincy while he's running around, she LOVES to play with hair. Not just play, but grab and pull out hair. Here's a great photo capturing Lexi gearing up to grab some blonde locks off Quincy's head. Little did Quincy know... I must say though, he didn't retaliate once, much to my relief he was very gentle with her. This was some much needed reassurance to the doubts I had about him and a newborn baby.

These two had so much fun being silly together. It's like they were both feeding off each other's energy. When one would get excited and start squealing, the other would follow. By the end of this night the two of them were exhausted!

Quincy can't wait to see his cousin, Lexi, again!

Thanksgiving Week in a Nutshell....

The beginning of our Thanksgiving holiday started with surprise..... for Grammie, that is.

My sister and her family were originally going to fly into Portland early Wednesday morning and leave Friday afternoon. I talked to my dad on the phone Monday afternoon to find out that they changed their plans to drive up late Monday night and get into Vancouver early Tuesday morning. We all knew about it and did what we could to keep my mom from finding out.

They got to Vancouver about 7:00AM and really confused my mom when they plopped onto her bed. She heard my sister Emy say, "Is that Grammie?" My mom's first thought was that it was Quincy and I, but she was confused as to why we would be at her house that early. Finally she realized it wasn't MY voice, but EMY'S voice. She was so happy.

This is my sister's family...or the Robledo Family: Gilbert (Gil), Emy, Lexi, and Evangiline (Evie).

This year for Thanksgiving we sure had a full house! Not only were all of MY siblings and THEIR families here...but my Grandma came, in addition to my Dad's sisters' family. All in all our numbers for dinner were up to 20 people. Mom had to do some re-configuring to be able to fit everyone into the tight dining room quarters. In fact she had to expand the dining room into her living room. It all seemed to work out though.

Since all the kids will be away for the Christmas holiday she decided to use the nice Christmas china for Thanksgiving. I must say, it did look very festive!

After everyone was full from eating a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.... we did exactly what you end up doing when everyone gets together, taking group photos of everyone.

Here's Great-Nanny with the little grand BABIES. I couldn't believe how big Quincy's cousin Lexi is. She is 9 months now and wearing a size 6 1/2 shoe and some 2T clothes. Just to give you better perspective on those stats, Quincy's 27 months old and wearing a size 8 shoe and 3T clothes. Lexi's quite the little match for Quincy....

This is Quincy's other cousin from my side of the family, Evie. It's funny to think that Evie is my step-niece when she's already a senior in high school, and older than Karter--my youngest brother! Evie is the sweetest girl. Not only is she is beautiful inside and out, but she's great at playing with the little kids. We are so glad she could come up to meet the family.

It's really crazy to think that the last time I saw Emy was the first time I had ever met her, not only that, but I was newly married, living in Boise, and still going to school.... it's amazing how much has happened since then!

Look, now we're both married and we have got 2 1/2 little ones on our hands. Man, I'm REALLY starting to look preggo right now! Uggg.... I can't wait to get this little guy out! He kicks like crazy. Tyler and I might make small to average size children, but boy are they healthy and strong. Pipa kicks and moves constantly, sometimes so much that I feel like my insides are bruised. It will be so nice to hold him in my arms and see him. Quincy can't wait either. He had SO much fun visiting with his cousin, Lexi. He can't wait to do fun things with a new little brother.

It was such a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, thanks Mom and Dad for everything! And thanks Emy and Gil for being able to share in all of it. It was great to see you guys. Hopefully we'll be able to see you more often.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Yes, yes, I realize some of you reading this are thinking: "What about Thanksgiving?"

BUT...

Since we won't be spending Christmas here in Oregon, and seeing as how I actually HAVE Christmas decorations this year, I thought I'd start a little early. Even Tyler, who gave me a hard time at first, has admitted that it all looks nice and cozy. And it does!

Last year we spent Christmas with my family, in fact I remember the drive there quite vividly... seeing as how we spent it in a **blizzard**! Luckily we made it safe and sound. We were able to spend a wonderful break with my family, despite everything being covered in snow. Practically everything shuts down here when it snows and since there were a few feet on the ground it made it difficult to get out.

Anyway, my parents gift to us last year was getting us started with some Christmas decorations. Anyone who knows my mom, knows that she loves Christmas decorations! After Christmas when everything went on sale we stocked up. We found some killer deals including boxes of 100 white Christmas tree lights for .10 cents a piece! I have decided to do all my seasonal decoration shopping this way.... when it's all 75% off. :)

Every year we rotate holidays with our families. This way we get to spend one of the major two holidays with each family. It has worked out great that Tyler's siblings, the ones who are married, are also on the same rotation for holidays as we are. It's so nice to see all of them at LEAST once a year.

This Christmas we'll be driving to Idaho. I keep hoping and praying we won't have to deal with bad weather again. To be honest, I'm kinda nervous in general about making the drive to Idaho. Last year, Tyler had a really flexible schedule and could pretty much determine his own work hours. This was nice since we had to pick and choose which day would be best to travel in.... we didn't have any pressure for him to get back. Since he's working for Key Bank now, he does have all holidays off, but it would be terrible if we weren't able to get back and he had to use his days off. I will also be 7 1/2 months pregnant in a car for 6-9 hours and you all know that pregnancies + long drives do not = the best of circumstances for traveling.

Oh and did I mention how much fun it is trying to 'entertain' a 2 year old when they have to be strapped into a car seat? It's all very lovely! I think we'll pick a couple of movies to take, last time that worked pretty well.

So.......bottom line.... praying for good weather.
I already know we'll have a blast when we actually get there.

And here's a little Christmas preview of what our home looks like:

Our Christmas tree.

I tried to take a few pictures with the lights off so you could see it all lit up at night, but unfortunately my camera doesn't have any settings to get a great picture. This is as good as it gets.

Quincy and I spent an afternoon cutting out snowflakes.... mostly it was me doing the cutting, but he instructed me on what shapes to cut out and helped with the gluing and taping on the windows.

One of my favorite things about our new apartment is our fireplace. I love that we have a mantel and place where our stockings can hang.

More snowflakes.

Again, one more attempt at trying to get a shot with the lights out.

Quincy and I.
Yes, I know I've been neglecting to put up any 'pregnancy' pictures of me. I feel huge and quite frankly I'm not in the mood to see myself like this. It's oh-so-depressing when none of your cute clothes fit you. Luckily, Tyler has been able to take me shopping a few times to get some much needed apparel. So here's one of me and my boy(s). Enjoy! :) Oh and tomorrow I go in for another Dr. appt.... so I'll let you know if there's anything exciting. Probably just shots and that yucky glucose test. Blah!

And just one more pic. of Tyler and I.
He seems to get so much satisfaction out of taking pictures of me that I thought I'd include one of him.

Merry Early Christmas Everyone!

Life with a Newborn Baby

I remember those special days with our newborn baby.... those days where the nights and days ***blurred*** together. Those wonderful days of functioning in zombie mode...when you awoke to your screaming baby and somehow knew you must have been sleeping for hours, yet you would come to a rude realization that it had only been 15 minutes.......


Ahhhh... the blissful days of new parenthood. Indeed there are some parents out there who are blessed enough to have children, nay babies, who sleep peacefully and willingly with the slightest rocking, swaying from their moms.

OUR sweet baby was not one of these babies. He was stubborn from Day: 1.

He somehow knew at the ripe age of 3 days old that whenever he closed those heavy eyelids was going to be the second we started doing fun and exciting new things.



He didn't want to miss a moment in this new exciting world.




He would fight........... and fight.......and FIGHT to keep those eyelids open................... and eventually the weight would become unbearable. Begrudgingly he would give into his sleepy lids.... for a moment or two (usually the moment while you were trying to put his tiny body back in the crib) before they would spring open again.
We spent so many hours trying to convince our little guy that we wouldn't do anything fun without him, but being the smart baby he was.... he knew.

HE KNEW that we were full of lies.


Flash forward 2 years later and our sweet little boy, the one who's afraid to miss out on anything, seems as though he hasn't changed one bit.

Exhibit A: Quincy falling asleep in the shopping cart at Target.

Exhibit B: Quincy trying to hold his body upright, as to convince his sleepy body that its' not really sleepy.

Exhibit C: Quincy passed out after a good 2 hours worth of screaming in protest during his usual nap time.

Our latest fun and exciting news is that for whatever apparent reason, Quincy has decided that he needs to wake up at 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 or 6:00AM..... sometimes all of them. Since he has successfully learned to open his door he walks into our room to announce to his sleep deprived parents in an eager whisper: "I awake!"

You would think that he would notice that the whole house is quiet, that his parents are sound asleep in their bed.... that the whole house is dark. You would think that maybe we would realize we aren't doing anything fun without him, but NNNNnnnnnnOOOOOooooo!

We haven't quite figured out how to make Quincy stay asleep in the morning. We don't even know why he's waking up at those hours.



What we DO know is that we are lacking desperately in the sleep department!



I feel as though I have a newborn baby again, only this time around my 'baby' comes into my bedroom or bed just to annoy me. I don't know what we're going to do when we actually have baby Pipa.......I'm already exhausted.

Tyler did give him a blessing a few nights ago that he would be comforted and sleep.....it was the first night in weeks that he slept until 7:30AM. Then the next night came.... and he woke up early again.

What to do, what to do.... Suggestions anyone????

On a more positive note Quincy went to the temple grounds with us and loved it. He kept saying "The temple HUGE!" And pointing out many of the details outside. He was of course fascinated by the water features and even tried to convince us to let him swim in the reflecting pool.....

I thought this tree was beautiful and reminded me of the "burning bush".

It was really special to visit the Portland Temple grounds with all of my boys. The last time Tyler and I were there we were being sealed together as husband and wife.

Who would have thought then that 3 years into the future we would return as a family of 3 and a half!?! I love the symbol that the temple's stand for.....** Families are Forever**.

I'm so thankful for my boys.... even if they drive me crazy sometimes and I often feel sleep deprived because of one of them.

Another positive note is that Quincy is learning to say his prayers. Although he's still to young to say things on his own, he really enjoys repeating after us to pray. It's so sweet to hear him say nice things to Heavenly Father. Each night we have decided to have family prayer together in his room. I think this has made a huge difference in the mood that he's in right before bedtime.

And lastly, something sweet that Quincy does each night is kiss Pipa, or my belly, and then he says "Goodnight Pipa! I lubb you!" It makes me smile each time he does it...and ALMOST forget about all the sleep he's depriving us of... almost.

Peace on Earth and GOODWILL to our Bank Account

Tonight we made a little visit to Goodwill to see if Tyler could find a decent basketball jersey, I mean it's not like he plays that often, so why splurge for a brand new one? The jersey he got was in good condition and was also a great price.

While he was looking for a jersey I found a cute little baby changing pad. It was in mint condition and even had a very practical attached diaper/ wipes holder. The price tag only read .99 cents, which I thought was a great price. When we went to check out at the register it only rang up .49 cents. Who would've known that it was a blue tag, and by golly blue tags were 50% off!

So this is the nice little changing pad I only paid .49 cents for!

A proud moment in history for dad:

Each day while I'm putting on my make up Quincy is absolutely fascinated. He constantly asks what things are and what they are for. He desperately wants me to put some on him too. Tyler absolutely refuses to let me do this, and considering how cheap I am, I'm too frugal to waste good make up.

Poor Quincy has to resort to just watching me put it on my own face. Today I let him hold my brushes and sponges and he was quite satisfied in pretending that he was doing what I was. :o) In my defense there wasn't any actual make up on the brushes and sponges so no harm done right?

Brushing his eye brows.... this I think should be a must since he has Howard eyebrows.

Putting a little blush on his rosy cheeks.

Having so much fund 'bonding' with mom. :o)

Happy Halloween!

Quincy went trick or treating with my parents yesterday while Tyler and I had our own date night. You can see he's quite excited:

Look at some of the elaborate car trunks for the trunk or treat:

Quincy even went trick or treating at Nanny and Pappy's..... apparently he was the only trick or treater they had, lucky him, he got some full size candy bars!

Walking around the parking lot at the trunk or treat.

Quincy was totally a pro at saying the magic phrase: " Trick or Treat."

Thanks Grammie and Grandpa for taking Quincy trick or treating. He had so much fun!

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween everyone!

Just because....

Quincy has become extremely bossy and stubborn lately. I constantly hear: "Don't put my shoes on Mama" or "Don't wash my plate Mama" or "Don't brush my teeth Mama, I do it myself."

Well, I let him sit on the chair by himself and what happened? He got stuck.... to which he finally resorted to asking for my help.

Ah.... this boy is so darn stubborn!

Fall is in the air....

I love living in the Pacific Northwest because you can actually witness the changing of the seasons. Right now most or all of the deciduous trees are starting to change colors and loose their leaves. Portland is beautiful this time of year.... despite what you might hear about all the rain.

I also love the seasonal vegetables that you see in the stores... like small gourds and pumpkins.

This was the view from our patio the other morning? See there are blue skies here during fall!!

The scenic drive to Tyler's work is filled with hillsides which look like the picture below.

And lastly, I couldn't resist putting this picture of our Jack O Lantern. I love his grouchy eye browns and how he's peeking through our sliding glass window at us. Every day Quincy says, "There's my Jack Lantern out there."

Pumpkin Carving and Trunk or Treating

This year was our first time pumpkin carving....

Quincy seemed pretty happy about the idea of pumpkin carving....

Unfortunately as we actually progressed into the carving process Quincy was showing less enthusiasm.

I don't know what seemed to make him so nervous about this pumpkin carving activity... maybe it was Tyler jamming a knife into a pumpkin, oh who knows.....

We had to have a little sit down with him and explain that pumpkin carving was fun. We would get to carve a face on our pumpkin. Then after we made a face on it we could light a candle and put it inside. This seemed to cheer Quincy up a little bit....

That was until it came to the part where we had to gut the pumpkin out. Quincy was terrified of the stuff inside of it. Note the nervous smile in the picture above. Tyler made the mistake of just grabbing his hand and shoving it inside the pumpkin. He FREAKED out. He was screaming and clinging to me and must have thought that pumpkin was never going to give his hand back. After we calmed him down once more we explained that there were seeds inside. We needed to take out all the seeds so we toast them in the oven and eat them. This wasn't exactly enough to convince him so what did we do? Bribe him with smarties of course! Then he was really excited................

Look at how he excited he was after pulling out one seed.

After a lot of hard work on my part in sorting guts from seeds... this was the final result.

And here Quincy is with his Jack O Lantern.

Our ward had a Trunk or Treat and home made chili with cornbread dinner. We decided to go and Quincy was thrilled with the whole concept of trunk or treating. It only took him a few cars to figure out that magic phrase that resulted in his getting lots of treats.

By the end of the night our little pumpkin had a pumpkin full of candy!

In other BIG NEWS

Quincy went poop 2 times!

Yeah, I know some of you don't want to hear about our two year old son's bowel movement accomplishments, BUT this is huge for us. We bought him a new potty chair, which has a soft foam seat. He seems to like this one much better. We are still a long ways off from being potty trained, but we have taken a humongous leap in the right direction. He was very excited about his first potty success and as a reward we bought some Elmo stickers, two coloring books, and some potty treats. I will be sure to keep you all updated about how the 'potty training' goes. Those of you who don't are..... just skim over these posts. :o)

This last picture is of Quincy's final piece of work after a little 'craft time' with mom. He was very excited about the glue sticks part of this project. He kept saying, "More glue stick Mama!"

His project ended up being displayed on our fridge and rightfully so..... look at how nice it turned out!

Announcing to the world.....

On October 20th we found out that we are going to have...........

...............Another Boy!


I was also somewhat relieved to see that we still have ONE healthy baby inside my tummy verses two. I know it seems silly, at my last ultrasound in August we had confirmed there was only one baby in there, but I sometimes get worried that there are two in there instead of just one and the doctors somehow missed the other one. Luckily we have one VERY healthy and very ACTIVE little boy in there.

I have to say, this pregnancy has been NOTHING like my last one so for a while I was thinking, **maybe it's a girl**, but the closer we got to my Dr. appointment the more I was feeling that it was yet another boy. Sure enough, as soon as we looked at the screen during my ultrasound there HE was..... showing off all his goods before the Dr. could even tell us that he was a boy. I knew immediately what I was looking at the second the picture pulled up on the screen. So here we go again, Boy #2!

I will openly admit that I was holding out for a girl, but there are also many reasons why I'm happy it's a boy instead. First, we already have boy stuff. And secondly, Quincy will love having a little brother to play with. So in that sense all is well for me.

The part in which I'm sad about is not being able to buy all those cute little girl things. Growing up I always wanted a sister..... and never got one. I do have an older, half sister, who I didn't meet until a few years ago. I feel sort of jipped in the girl department. I never had someone with whom I was closely bonded by blood to share all my secrets with. Fortunately, I DO have a wonderful relationship with my mom, which is why I was holding out to have at least one girl.

Alas, all is not lost... because we plan on having at least one or two more kids. So there's still hope for a little girl in our future, at least that's how I prefer to look at it.

The second part of finding out we are expecting boy #2 that is sad for me is that we DO NOT agree on boys' names. It took us forever to agree on a handful of names last time around. We only had about 5 that we BOTH liked; I was hoping this baby would be a girl and save us the headache in trying to figure out a way to compromise on something as 'insignificant' as a name. :o) So far we have maybe 2 names that we agree on......................

..........................................Wish us luck.

The part that I am very excited about for this next little boy is holding him. I can't wait to see all his 10 fingers and toes, I can't wait to smell his sweet baby scented skin, and feel his soft hair (if he has any, Quincy didn't have much), and I can't wait to feel his warm little fragile body next to mine.

We feel so blessed to have healthy babies. Though my baby #1 isn't much of a baby at all anymore. I know he will look gigantic next to Pipa.

On another note I will write a little update about what's new with me, at least in my pregnancy. My belly is getting bigger daily. I've always hated Tyler taking 'pregnancy photos' because I always felt they look unflattering. Who wants to remember looking so big and uncomfortable anyways? I am considering having my pictures taken by a girl I know... perhaps they will be something I WANT to remember.

I am officially 24 weeks today, so about 6 months along now. My due date is something like February 18th or such.... the estimated due date means nothing to me since I know of very few women who actually deliver on their EDD. While we were in for my ultrasound looking at Pipa the Dr. informed me that he was transverse breech, so it looks like I have another stubborn baby on my hands again, one that doesn't want to lie vertically inside me. Lucky me, it's extremely comfortable carrying babies horizontally! Although since I'm only 6 months, we have 3 more months before we need to make any definite plans for a c-section.
Only time will tell.

I have only gained 15 pounds so far.... this has been great news for me. I gained close to 50 when I carried Quincy (although I lost it all very fast--like 30 lbs within 2 days and the rest within 2 months) .... still it was extremely uncomfortable to carry that much weight. This time around I was hoping to stick closer to the recommended weight gain of 25-35 lbs. So it seems I'm on track this time for a more steady weight gain.

On Tuesday night Quincy and I went to Tyler's basketball game. While we were waiting for the high school volley ball game to end before the city league basketball could start I felt Quincy hit my stomach really hard. It was so hard that I looked down to scold him and realized that it wasn't Quincy it was PIPA! This little boy has got quite the power behind those kicks! What does the mean will happen when I'm 9 months pregnant??? UGG!

Lastly, I'm grateful to not be sick anymore... food has become much more enjoyable, although I do occasionally have bad heartburn. This has been a new experience for me, since I've never had heartburn in my life before. Lets just say it's not something I hope to carry on after pregnancy.


And I just thought I'd end with this picture of somebody else's pregnant belly. Mine isn't near this big yet, though I'm sure it won't be long. At first I was kind of creeped out by the little foot print through her belly, but you have to admit.... that it's pretty freakin' amazing that they

1.) caught it on camera and
2.) that we, as women, carry life inside of us.

I feel very lucky to carry this little boy.... and I'm even more excited to meet him!